I totally agree with you about the skill involved in climbing. AFAIK, EMS and REI both provide decent, if not excellent, training in climbing. Scrambling over some boulders in the local park will provide a basic concepts for the totally uninitiated. I first learned to climb on the boulders in Central Park NYC. My mentor was an expreineced climber with several solo summits world wide under his belt. The instructor can and should teach the rope techniques and basic moves, the rock will teach the rest. Only the rock can teach the rest - this is one of those situations where you just have to get out there. OTOH, I wouldn't want to even try to start climbing without the basic strength levels. There will be times when you have to pull yourself up with your arms after having climbed for 100 ft already. If you can't even do one chin-up or pull-up you are stuck 100 ft up with no way up and no good way down, exhausted and alone. (not good). As you correctly point out, if you have the head for it climbing isn't so-much different than stair climbing, you stand on your feet, bend your knees and step up to the next hold. Your hands stabilize and occasionally grip but unless you are doing extensive free-rope work you will be climbing on your legs not your arms. I emphasized the upper body in my earlier post because many could count on having the requisit leg strength simply because they carry themselves around all day, OTOH very few can actually pull themselves up even once.

BTW, if you are ball or pear shaped there is little chance that you could actually get your center of gravity sufficiently close to the rock to even consider safely climbing regardless of strength. Picture the incredibly strong suomo wrestler trying to climb a vertical rock face. <img src="images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />